National Taiwan University (NTU), which is to name a campus square after White Terror victim Chen Wen-chen (陳文成), is holding a competition to choose a design for the square.
The NTU Campus Planning Committee said that the 1,107m2 space, which will be called “Dr Chen Wen-chen Incident Memorial Square” (陳文成事件紀念廣場), is between the 1st Student Activity Center and the Department of Library and Information Science building, where the body of Chen, who was an NTU alumnus and a democracy activist, was found in 1981.
The naming of the square is aimed at increasing public awareness of Chen’s death and his contribution to Taiwan’s democratic development, the committee said.
Student representatives and teachers brought up the idea of establishing a memorial square on campus in 2013, which was approved by an university affairs meeting in 2014, said committee convener Huang Liling (黃麗玲), who is also an associate professor at the university’s Graduate Institute of Building and Planning.
The committee said it is calling for projects to redesign the space in a way that would attract students and the public to visit and learn more about Chen.
Participants can submit their designs between April 30 and May 30, the committee said, adding that the winning design would be given a NT$100,000 cash prize.
The name of the square and Chen’s accomplishments must be displayed in the square and its theme should express the spirit of “courage and freedom,” the committee said.
Committe member Wu Hsin-Yu (吳鑫餘) said that the White Rose Monument in front of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich and the Jan Palach Square in Prague’s Old Town are examples of such squares, adding that the committee plans to create a public space that signifies the role the incident played in the development of Taiwan’s democracy.
NTU Student Council academic officer Weng Yu-lin (翁毓聆) said it will be the first democracy memorial square on campus and would also be a representation of transitional justice.
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